6 killed in Russia’s volatile south

MOSCOW – Six people have been killed in a night of violence in Russia’s restive southern republic of Dagestan, four of them found dead with execution-style shots to the head, news reports said Sunday.

Those killed included the head of security of a regional division of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom and a civilian who was shot dead in his front yard, reports quoted Dagestani security officials as saying.

Bodies of the four men with shots to the head were found by local villagers near the foothills that separate Dagestan from Chechnya, a fellow Muslim region that experienced two wars since the mid-1990s.

One of the four men was a local policeman, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Caspian Sea region of Dagestan experiences almost daily shootings and bombings that officials blame on local criminals and Islamists with links to Chechnya.

Fuelled by endemic poverty and corruption, the militants are seeking to establish an independent Islamic state across the North Caucasus.